The Southeastern 14's 2021 All-Southeastern Conference baseball team

Our inaugural All-Southeastern Conference team, based on end-of-regular-season play. 

Doug Nikhazy photo courtesy of Ole Miss.

The Southeastern Conference regular season is over, and it's time for some awards, which we started yesterday. 

Here are our first-, second-, third- and fourth-team All-SEC squads for the 2021 baseball season, with some commentary on each team to follow each. We chose three starting pitchers and a reliever for each team. The "DH" doesn't have to be a DH, it's the best hitter left over whom we didn't select on our teams. 

FIRST TEAM

C   Hayden Dunhurst, Ole Miss

1B  Will Frizzell, Texas A&M

2B  Robert Moore, Arkansas

3B  Jake Rucker, Tennessee

SS  Ryan Bliss, Auburn

OF Tanner Allen, Mississippi State 

OF Enrique Bradfield Jr., Vanderbilt 

OF Christian Franklin, Arkansas

DH Liam Spence, Tennessee

SP Doug Nikhazy, Ole Miss

SP Kumar Rocker, Vanderbilt

SP Jack Leiter, Vanderbilt

RP Kevin Kopps, Arkansas

The DH isn't for a true "DH" as much as it is for us to honor the best player left who didn't get picked at a position in the field. It's debatable whether Spence was the best hitter left after the eight in the field were picked (and I can make a case he was) and he also fielded a higher percentage than Bliss (.971 vs. .956, though Bliss got to more balls, some on account of Spence spending time at DH due to injury) but both deserved to be there. And in case you missed it, we named Allen our Player of the Year earlier in the weekend.  

SECOND TEAM

C   Coltyn Kessler, Kentucky

1B  Tre´Morgan, LSU

2B  Peyton Wilson, Alabama 

3B  Rankin Woley, Auburn

SS  Jacob Gonzalez, Ole Miss

OF Dylan Crews, LSU

OF Jud Fabian, Florida 

OF Rowdey Jordan, Mississippi State

DH Kevin Graham, Ole Miss

SP Landon Marceaux, LSU

SP  Patrick Wicklander, Arkansas

SP  Will Bednar, Mississippi State

RP  Landon Sims, Mississippi State

Jordan may have been the toughest omission from the first team given his SEC performance; he wasn’t great outside the league and it was a tough outfield to crack. 

THIRD TEAM

C   Logan Tanner, Mississippi State

1B  T.J. Collett, Kentucky

2B  Max Ferguson, Tennessee

3B Justin Bench, Ole Miss

SS  Carter Young, Vanderbilt

OF  TJ McCants, Ole Miss 

OF  Gavin Dugas, LSU

OF Isaiah Thomas, Vanderbilt

DH  Matt Goodheart, Arkansas

SP  Christian MacLeod, Mississippi State

SP  Gunnar Hoglund, Ole Miss

SP  Brett Kerry, South Carolina

RP Sean Hunley, Tennessee

Kerry stretches the definition of "starting pitcher" a little bit given that he made just two starts (both in the last two weekends of the season). However, they were two terrific starts, plus, Kerry threw 42 1/3 league innings and so there were times he was used like a starter even if he didn’t actually start. 

FOURTH TEAM

C   Nathan Hickey, Florida

1B Dominic Keegan, Vanderbilt

2B Josh McAllister, Georgia

3B  Zane Denton, Alabama 

SS  Cole Tate, Georgia

OF  Brady Allen, South Carolina

OF  Connor Tate, Georgia

OF  Andrew Eyster, South Carolina

DH  Wes Clarke, South Carolina

 SP  Hunter Barco, Florida

SP  Blade Tidwell, Tennessee

SP  Ryan Webb, Georgia 

RP Chase Lee, Alabama

Wes Clarke’s on a lot of national award lists because of his 21 home runs. But Clarke hit .181/346/.381 in league games and struck out 45 times and didn’t play much in the field, making it hard for us to elevate him higher here. The league was deep with outstanding relievers; Florida’s Christian Scott, Vanderbilt’s Nick Maldonado, Ole Miss’s Taylor Broadway and Georgia’s Ben Harris were players who had great seasons who didn’t make the cut here.